"With Autumn soon upon (most of) us, I thought it would be a lot of fun to have a Fall-themed swap! The Fall in Love with Buttons Swap is one-to-one; that is, each participant will be paired up with a swap partner. We will each alter an Altoids tin, filling it with autumn colored or autumn themed buttons, and send it to our partner!"

I love buttons (well, who doesn't!) and I love sorting

through them, so couldn't wait to alter a tin to fill it up -

I had to though as I didn't

have the right sized tin but found one on Ebay.

I painted the tin with a coat of white acrylic,

then covered it with some Autumnal patterned Decopatch paper.

I cut some leaves from scraps of leather

using the Tim Holtz' Alterations/Sizzix 'Tattered Leaves' die.

I found a couple of wooden beads to represent berries.

I stitched the leaves and berries onto an old doily flower then stuck it

onto the lid. I also added a couple of Autumnal themed buttons.

I remembered a poem learnt at school, well the first few

lines of it anyway - Ode to Autumn by John Keats.

I Googled and found it, printed out a few lines

and added them to the outside and inside of the lid.

﻿

Then the best bit - finding all the Autumnal coloured buttons

to go inside - I must admit I wanted to keep them all - lol!

Here's all the buttons I managed to cram inside the tin.

Unfortunately my swap partner hasn't confirmed whether or not

she's received the tin yet, although as I sent it out at the end

of last month it should have arrived by now.

This is how I wrapped it - the button card (gift tag) is a rubber stamped

Friday, 21 October 2011

"to make a BOOKMARK with a VINTAGE theme AND include LACE somewhere on the project - you can make the actual bookmark from any medium you wish providing it is sturdy enough to be used and adorn it any way you want to as long as it has a vintage/shabby chic theme!"

For my bookmark then, I cut up an old dressmaking tissue pattern

and stuck on an image photocopied from the packet -

then gave the whole thing a couple of layers of Mod Podge.

The Mod Podge dries clear and leaves the tissue much sturdier

and prevents it from tearing.

I machine stitched it onto some cotton fabric

and added a lace flower aged with some Tea Dye coloured Distress Ink.

I didn't do anything to the button, it was like that - just old and shabby!

I added a few layers of lace to the bottom

and the back is covered with lace too.

The ribbon threaded through the top is seam binding

distressed with more of the Tea Dye coloured Distress Ink.

(In reality it isn't that deep a colour)

This is a two part challenge as we also had to make a tag ....

"You must make a Christmas themed tag to go with your bookmark - so your partners will receive a scrummy Christmas pressie bookmark wrapped with a nice Christmas tag"